1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to an improved data processing system and in particular to a method and apparatus for outputting data to a device. Still more particularly, the present invention provides a method and apparatus for printing Web pages containing links.
2. Description of Related Art
The Internet, also referred to as an “internetwork”, is a set of computer networks, possibly dissimilar, joined together by means of gateways that handle data transfer and the conversion of messages from the sending network to the protocols used by the receiving network (with packets if necessary). When capitalized, the term “Internet” refers to the collection of networks and gateways that use the TCP/IP suite of protocols.
The Internet has become a cultural fixture as a source of both information and entertainment. Many businesses are creating Internet sites as an integral part of their marketing efforts, informing consumers of the products or services offered by the business or providing other information seeking to engender brand loyalty. Many federal, state, and local government agencies are also employing Internet sites for informational purposes, particularly agencies which must interact with virtually all segments of society such as the Internal Revenue Service and secretaries of state. Providing informational guides and/or searchable databases of online public records may reduce operating costs. Further, the Internet is becoming increasingly popular as a medium for commercial transactions.
Currently, the most commonly employed method of transferring data over the Internet is to employ the World Wide Web environment, also called simply “the Web”. Other Internet resources exist for transferring information, such as File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and Gopher, but have not achieved the popularity of the Web. In the Web environment, servers and clients effect data transaction using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), a known protocol for handling the transfer of various data files (e.g., text, still graphic images, audio, motion video, etc.). The information in various data files is formatted for presentation to a user by a standard page description language, the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). In addition to basic presentation formatting, HTML allows developers to specify “links” to other Web resources identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) such as a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). A URL is a special syntax identifier defining a communications path to specific information. Each logical block of information accessible to a client, called a “page” or a “Web page”, is identified by a URL. The URL provides a universal, consistent method for finding and accessing this information, not necessarily for the user, but mostly for the user's Web “browser”. A browser is a program capable of submitting a request for information identified by a URL at the client machine. Retrieval of information on the Web is generally accomplished with an HTML-compatible browser.
In some cases, a user may desire to obtain a hard copy of one or more Web pages. In many cases, the user may desire to print out a copy of an article or some other content on a Web site. In some cases, the entire article or the desired content may be printed all at once. In other cases, the article or desired content may be divided up into many different pages which are linked to each other by URLs. In this situation, the user must print a page. This page may contain a number of links pointing to other pages containing other portions of the article or desired content. Each of these links must be visited by the user and then printed. Such a process becomes tedious and difficult when large number of links are present.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have an improved method and apparatus for printing web pages.